


into the rush now

by brutalhustler



Category: Psych
Genre: Episode Tag: s07e08 Right Turn or Left For Dead, F/M, Light Angst, marlowe and carlton DID get married in this timeline but there's no infidelity i promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-23 14:38:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11991810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brutalhustler/pseuds/brutalhustler
Summary: Episode Tag to s07e08.Juliet entertains an alternate timeline of her own.





	into the rush now

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this entire thing on the notepad of my phone in my bed in about four hours because that's just where I'm at right now. Please blame any typos on said circumstances (and bring them to my attention if you are so inclined). 
> 
> As usual, I'm not entirely sure what this is but please cry with me about these two anyway.

She waits a week. A week of solving crimes (because nothing, not even this, can keep her from her job), eating bowl after bowl of cereal in front of the tv when she should be sleeping, showering once or twice (she can't quite recall), contemplating adopting another cat, and reminding herself to breathe, in and out, whenever she forgets. 

She waits a week after Shawn moves out before she calls Carlton and tells him. Not that Shawn was lying about being a psychic, of course (not that Carlton  _needs_ telling, he's seen through it from the beginning). She'd made a promise and just because Shawn can't be trusted doesn't mean she's going to go back on her word.

"We broke up," is what she tells him, "me and Shawn."

"O'Hara." His voice is soft and yet gruff at the same time. "I don't know what to say."

"It's okay," she says. Being with Marlowe has softened him considerably but she doubts anything could make him good at this kind of thing. "I know you weren't a... fan, of us together, but I just thought you should know." 

"Of course, partner. I'm glad you told me. I'm-" he pauses, "I'm sorry." 

He doesn't mean "sorry you broke up," rather "sorry you're hurting," but she thinks that's more meaningful anyway. She smiles and something loosens in her chest.

Carlton has always been there, always strong and steady, always honest. When Juliet broke up with her first boyfriend her grandpa bought her a vanilla milkshake and said, "Ain't nothing without a good foundation. The biggest prettiest mansion will still fall if it's built on rubble." She thinks maybe that's what their problem was. Her and Shawn. Even without the lies, there wasn't much to build on.

She collects herself and says, "Do you want to come over tonight? We could go to the shooting range, maybe watch Heartbreak Ridge after."

"Ah, O'Hara, I can't. We're having dinner with Marlowe's parents tonight."

"That's okay!" Her tone is too bright and her partner, not as emotionally dense as people like to think, sees through it.

"I'm sure we could move it to another night, though. They're in town for a couple weeks, there's plenty of time. I could tell her you're sick or something."

_Tell her I need you._

"No," she reassures him, "don't worry about it. Another time." She tries to put a smile into her voice, doesn't want him to worry (doesn't want his pity). It's not like she won't see him at work in eighteen hours or so. They'll always have that, anyway. "Tell her-"

_Tell her I'm drowning._

"- tell her I said hi."

The line is quiet, save for the crackling of their breath, and Juliet lets her thoughts drift, just for a second. 

*

1.

"Juliet O'Hara, I’d like to introduce you to your partner, Carlton Lassiter," the woman (interim Chief Vick) says.  

Juliet looks at the tall, stern-looking man in front of her and grabs the proffered hand. 

"Carlton," Vick continues (her tone carries a warning and the man's grip switches from iron vice to regulation), "is our head detective. His last partner was transferred rather... abruptly," (he drops her hand like it's on fire) "and he has agreed to take you on as his partner." 

"Nice to meet you, Detective Lassiter," Juliet says, hoping her tone conveys how honored she is to work with him. 

“Likewise, Detective O’Hara.” _His_ tone, on the other hand, conveys slight annoyance.

 

2\. 

She learns quickly that this annoyance has nothing to do with her and is simply a permanent facet of Carlton’s attitude. He’s by turns brusque and indifferent. At the end of the first week she calls her mom, in tears, and tells her she’s coming home. Her mother tells her to drink a bottle of wine and quit being ridiculous. 

So she does. 

 

3\. 

It’s been a little over a month and Carlton’s defenses have begun to crack. It’s nothing that anyone else might notice, but for someone who spends hours upon hours with him every day, it’s significant. He no longer snaps at her and he’s begun to start asking her advice on cases. What’s more, he actually _listens_ to it. 

After another month, he starts to smile when he sees her. 

 

4\. 

She tells him that she’s uncomfortable with inter-office romance. And she means it at the time. 

He tells her that he isn’t considering it. And he means it at the time. 

 

5\. 

He opens up to her about his ex-wife. Sure, they’ve skated around the topic multiple times before, and he’s made jokes about the bleakness of love that are far too specific to not be about his own life. But this time is different. 

They get a drink together after work, a brand new step in their friendship, and he isn’t even tipsy when he tells her that her name is Victoria. It’s a pretty name and she says so. He smiles a sad smile that doesn’t look right on his face. 

He tells her about their relationship. What he loved about her, and why it didn’t work.

She _mmhm_ ’s in all the right places, says “doesn’t it always?” when he says that the job was what got in their way. 

She nods, smiles, breathes, when he says “sometimes I think it could only work, really work, with another cop.” (“Someone who gets it,” she agrees.)

She allows herself to hope.

 

6\. 

He finalizes his divorce and they get spectacularly drunk. It’s not a celebration but his face is flushed and he laughs more in the span of three hours than she’s ever heard him laugh before. 

She wonders all night about what it would be like to kiss him. If it would be quick and sloppy from the whiskey. If it would be slow and gentle in the morning. She thinks for a second about making a move, knows he probably won’t remember it the next day. 

She calls them separate cabs. 

 

7\. 

She’s not sure exactly when it happened, the change too gradual, but Carlton has become her closest friend, her most trusted confidant. Yes, he’s still prickly and, oftentimes, insensitive. But he’s also caring, and supportive, and open. He lets her hug him (practically) without complaint, her head tucked tight against his chest. He buys her coffee when he can see she’s having a bad day. He lets her cats sit on his lap when he’s over at her apartment, even though she knows he hates the way their hair coats his slacks. 

More than anything, though, is the way they trust each other with their lives, every single day. She knows, logically, that this is just what partners do. But Juliet has always been a sucker for that sort of thing. Honesty, trust, two things she’d never been able to rely on as a kid. 

The bond between two partners is powerful, it has to be. But she can’t help but wonder how the other cops do it. How they stop themselves from falling in love. 

 

8a.

Juliet gets kidnapped, Carlton saves her life, and they fuck, tired and aching and desperate, in the back of his car. 

 

8b.

Shawn asks her out. For real this time.

She thinks about the way she felt when she realized Carlton was there to save her. She tries to imagine how she would have felt if it had been Shawn instead. 

She says no. 

(She tells Carlton she loves him.)

(He tells her it’s the trauma.)

 

9\. 

Her lease ends and her rent skyrockets and Juliet moves in with Carlton. 

“You’re the only person I know with a second bedroom,” she says. 

“It’s short term. I’ll be out of your hair before you know it,” she says. 

“Take as long as you need,” he says. 

Three weeks later, they quit using the second bedroom. 

 

10\. 

Juliet wakes up and Carlton is already up, sitting beside her with a book on his lap. She grumbles a greeting and closes her eyes against the too bright sun streaming in through the window.

He closes his book over around his finger to save his place and busies his other hand in her hair. 

“Juliet?”

“Hm?” Her voice is muffled in the pillow. 

(Juliet doesn’t think of herself as the type of person who needs to be married, and she doesn’t think of Carlton as the type of person who would get married for a second time but—)

—He says, “Will you marry me?”

She opens her eyes to the too bright sun and says, “Of course.”

*

"Okay, O'Hara," he finally says. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Bye, Carlton.”

“Goodnight, O’Hara.”  

She hangs up the phone. 


End file.
